Members of the U.S. delegation to the Arctic Council, representatives from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Department of the Interior, and Penn State experts will discuss the role and interests of the United States in shaping global strategies for the Arctic region from 1 to 5 p.m. on Oct. 20 at the Lewis Katz Building's Sutliff Auditorium on the University Park campus.

The second annual "Polar Day" brought together hundreds of university and community members alike. Arguably the most uncanny moment in this year's Polar Day was an aural experience unlike any that had been heard before: a "data sonification" of ice. But what continues to resonate most with most participants in this year's Polar Day was the electrifying talk by Felicity Aston, the first woman to traverse Antarctica solo and the first human to do so under her own muscle alone.

Whether existing ecological communities can persist intact as temperatures rise may depend as much on biological interactions that shape communities themselves as on the effects of climate change, according to a Penn State biology researcher.

The Arctic as we know it may soon be a thing of the past, according to new research by a large, international team led by Eric Post, associate professor of biology at Penn State. The team carried out ecosystem-wide studies of the biological response to Arctic warming and documented a wide range of responses by the plants, birds, animals, insects and humans living there. High-resolution images are on the Web at http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/Post9-2009.htm.